The Web3 team goes south to "fish for gold", which red lines cannot be stepped on?

Introduction

Sister Sa is no stranger to Singapore and Hong Kong, and she is even very familiar with her. There are relatives, teachers and friends of mine respectively. In this wave of Web3.0 operations, the two sides are somewhat confronted. It seems to be lively and lively for a while, but when you calm down, marketing is overseas, sales are overseas, old money and new money are overseas, but programmers are still "staying behind" in the mainland. After receiving overseas N customers and prospective customers, some common problems were abstracted, and I would like to say a few words here.

01. Why? Inland IT team, high quality and low price

Demographic dividend and talent dividend are two different things. It is true that IT talents are abundant in mainland China. The characteristics of domestic programmers are "willing to work overtime", "more obedient" and "good quality and low price". At present, there are more technical men in the cities where science and engineering colleges gather together and in the Greater Bay Area. The average per capita is 211 and 985 masters. In the tide of the Internet, some "graduated" from large factories, and some were tricked by classmates to form a group to start a business. In short, looking around, our scientific and technological talent pool is gratifying.

With the rise of Web3.0 and AI, a new wave of entrepreneurship is undercurrent. They call themselves "the Jews of the encrypted world". Many Chinese have gone to Nanyang to Singapore, or took advantage of the Hong Kong government's strong support for the digital economy to Hong Kong. To start a new business, however, we found that those few souls who really went to Singapore and Hong Kong, that is, the more active members of the team, and a large number of technical friends still stayed in the mainland to live and work for various considerations.

Except for the programmers in Beijing who are very concerned about the "five insurances and one housing fund" (probably because they earn points for their children to go to school), the programmers in other first-tier cities and second-tier cities are more open-minded, and are basically willing to accept token payments. Of course, use various virtual currencies It is illegal to pay wages, and we remind everyone that wages still need legal currency. But it seems that everyone's mentality is relatively stable, that is, more and more people ask whether they can collect coins in private.

02. Staying behind the technical team, compliance is a problem

Although we call it a "technical team", in fact, it is rare to directly set up a wholly foreign-owned enterprise in the mainland. Currently, only one company has set up a WOFE in the mainland, and they are basically "doing private work" and "breaking the whole into parts". .

It is actually a good choice to establish a legal wholly foreign-owned company and enjoy the treatment of an industrial park in a second-tier city. For web3.0 projects whose overseas business is relatively compliant, you can directly copy the homework.

If it is "doing private work", there are a lot of legal risks involved, especially the "Criminal Law Amendment Twelve (Draft)" expands the crime of breach of trust originally reserved for state-owned companies and enterprise insiders to general companies and enterprises. The relevant behaviors of individuals that lead to "doing private work" may constitute the crime of illegally operating similar businesses in Article 165 of the Criminal Law. The so-called crime of illegally operating similar businesses, after the "Criminal Law Amendment Twelve (Draft)" came into force, refers to the directors and managers of companies and enterprises taking advantage of their positions to operate or operate for others the same type of business as the company or enterprise they work for, The act of obtaining illegal benefits and a huge amount. Therefore, if the "private work" done by an individual belongs to the same type of business as the company or enterprise he originally worked for, and he uses it to seek illegal benefits, then it is a crime of illegally operating the same type of business. Although this article requires that you must be a director or manager of a company or an enterprise, there is room for interpretation of the word "manager", so please pay attention to risks.

If you want to help overseas Web3 companies do things in your own name, you should pay attention to your own risks: whether you are doing low-level technology or a "turnkey project" that knows the whole picture, the former subjectively does not know much about what overseas companies are doing , the risk is small, please keep the evidence that you do not know the whole picture for emergencies (sometimes, there may be a risk of crime of accreditation), if it is a turnkey project, you must have a full understanding of the project you are doing, no " “Leaving a back door”, if there is a back door in the current handling of the case, which may cause economic losses to the user, it is more often treated as an accomplice in the crime of fraud.

03. Choose Singapore or Hong Kong?

To be honest, the Greater Bay Area is a good choice, with a better legal environment and a strong business atmosphere. It is not necessary to drag the family and move to the "small place" (although Singapore has relatives and friends, and there are many old friends in the circle, but the heart is too small, I went to the National Museum for seven days, and I was crazy), Hong Kong Slightly larger, overall good, but the low air pressure and the perennial absence of the sun make the northerners tear up.

In addition to the Greater Bay Area, the mainland can also choose Dalian, Nanjing, Shanghai, Beijing and other places. In other words, it is right to find a place where science and engineering colleges gather together.

From the perspective of criminal law, the Basic Law of Hong Kong excludes the application of mainland criminal law, and Hong Kong is superior to Singapore in this regard. Just remember the conclusion, Sister Sa will not explain in detail. Of course, when choosing which country or region to take root, one must also consider the country's and local policy environment and legal environment. In terms of resolving commercial legal disputes, the international arbitrations in Singapore and Hong Kong are world-renowned, and colleagues in our law firm often travel to and from the two places to resolve disputes. Regardless of where the company is located, remember to write the dispute resolution location in the contract as Hong Kong or Singapore. The entire dispute resolution process is confidential and fast. The disadvantage is that it is expensive (think about the prices and housing prices in the two places, it is indeed expensive).

04. Data export issues

As more and more Chinese people go overseas to develop business, many people still want to give full play to China's technological advantages and personnel advantages. Friends always come to ask if it is possible to use the credit information of mainlanders overseas. These are sensitive information, and everyone should be sensitive, and they cannot start a business with a slap in the face.

Overseas, really earn money from foreigners. Don't always think about taking resources and personal information from China, and then going overseas to spend money in places where there is no legal restriction. This kind of thinking is shrewd but unwise. All major countries in the world attach great importance to data security. In different legal areas, there may be strong protection for privacy and strict requirements for economically applicable data on the platform. It is really dangerous to innovate by taking advantage of legal loopholes in an unfamiliar country on your own. Web3.0's invasion of the original financial system, especially the country's minting rights, is obvious to all, and international organizations have also denied non-sovereign currencies from the side.

As far as the current methods offered by friends to take advantage of China’s “big market”, as long as they are the right way, we are still willing to support them, such as servers in China, serving Chinese companies and individuals, paying taxes for fees, and taking profits, no problem. But if the data were to be sent overseas, it would be subject to intense scrutiny. Conversely, if the server is overseas and serves global customers including China, it depends on the laws of the country where the server is located. This is why we always ask customers where they want to deploy the server and in which countries they want to conduct business , In this way, the questions are packaged, and the legal issues are abstracted and sent to our colleagues in various offices around the world, and the answers are collected within the specified time, which is convenient for customers to screen and make decisions.

The conclusion is that in mainstream countries, the export of data is seriously concerned, and it is not easy to use other people's data. Sister Sa’s solution is to consider privacy computing, but I heard from techies that the current privacy computing technology can still be restored to the specific person himself. If so, then there is no solution to this problem.

Write at the end

Mainland China is undergoing vigorous digital transformation. In fact, many technical teams can set up their own companies to serve the digital transformation of central enterprises + state-owned enterprises + private enterprises in the mainland. There is no need to limit yourself to a certain obsession or idea. The mainland market has a lot to offer. Both hands must be grasped, and both hands must be in compliance.